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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Gregg Olsen
Read between
February 7 - February 7, 2024
I’ll disown you. I swear I will. I’ll shun you for the rest of your life.”
Shelly was threatening
He was stuck at Mac’s. As for her mother taking care of him? That was another lie.
When Tori didn’t clean the dog kennel to her mother’s satisfaction,
tomorrow.” All of a sudden, Tori was panic-stricken.
seven years,
7 years since without
What if Nikki didn’t like her? Nikki had been such a huge influence in Tori’s life—taking care of her, playing with her. And then poof! She was suddenly gone, and made out to be a terrible person by their mother. Tori had had no idea that Sami and Nikki had stayed in contact over the years.
Her sister Nikki was twenty-eight, all grown up. So beautiful. Poised. She even smelled wonderful.
have to tell Mom. This lunch with Nikki can be just between us. Understand?”
She told him that Tori was going to spend time with Sami in Seattle, and that she needed
He didn’t want to leave Shelly.
him in clean sweatpants—
Shelly? Dave struggled as he pulled Ron’s body from the freezer.
work. He stood back in the dark, removed his work gloves, and studied
Tori were coming down off the high of their reunion with Nikki. It had been the best day ever. Tori had alternately missed and feared Nikki over the years, but at that moment, she could see her mother’s manipulations for what they were. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. Shelly wanted to control people. She loathed any scenario in which she wasn’t the center square. It was like their family was a cult of some kind: Nikki had escaped first, then Sami. The world outside of Raymond was a more beautiful—and happy—place than Tori had ever thought possible. She was Dorothy from Kansas,
...more
retrieved some laundry from the dryer, and
Sami felt her heart race. No, she thought. Fuck.
was my job to protect that girl. But I failed. I did. I didn’t ask the right questions. I didn’t tell her what I knew. I just asked if she was okay. If Mom was okay.”
I thought you and Nikki had a happy childhood.”
Tori started to cry. She could see that her sister’s
“She did it before. She did it to all of us. She did it to Kathy.”
in Old Willapa. Tori had been around two years old. Kathy was in the bathroom on the main floor. She wore a thin lime-green nightgown.
“Mom killed Kathy,” Sami choked out. “They burned her in the yard.”
She’d never looked worse. She’d gained more than twenty pounds over the past year.
“Shane’s dead,” Lara said in a shattered voice.
If that’s indeed what it was.
The next time Nikki saw Shane, he was black and blue.
she’d been the one to tip off her parents.
Shelly was never part of any blame. She’d tell everyone that Shane had been Kathy’s abuser.
We both know it. He deserves to die for what he did. Dave, be a man!”
Shelly didn’t drink, so New Year’s Eve was a quiet one at home.
February, six months after Kathy died. Nikki woke up in the middle of the night. A noise
Dave was numb as he bent down. He hadn’t wanted to kill the boy. He hadn’t thought he could ever kill him. But it was as if he’d been programmed,
“I killed Shane.”
Why world pause@ why my pace?
him, harassed him, cajoled him into doing nearly since the day Kathy died. “What are we going to do now?” she asked. “What we did with Kathy,” he said. Shelly liked the idea.
He poured some bleach into a Home Depot bucket of water and did his best to clean up the bloody mess. He had promised his wife there would be no trace.
He only used wood and kept putting more on top of his nephew’s body until it vanished into
sheeting he’d used on her had, he
to the Pacific County sheriff that Shane had run away. Dave made the call, telling the
“just let it go.”
weapon used to kill the boy.
like Edgar Allan Poe’s tell-tale heart, always mocking Dave, reminding him of what he’d done to his nephew. Shelly, too, was absolutely certain that, despite how isolated the location was, and
He never saw it again.
on a roll of undeveloped film stashed in a drawer in the living room. Shane had taken the photo of Kathy, naked, crawling on the living room floor. It was horrific and sickening.
in this mess with Shelly up to his neck.
Nikki and Sami stayed in constant contact after their parents’ arrests, avoiding TV when they could, though that was nearly impossible.
The Raymond torture killings
Raymond Torture Killings, as their mother’s and father’s crimes were summarily dubbed, invaded all the space around them.
Except the Knotek girls. Nikki, Sami, and Tori never said a word to the media. It was a promise they’d made to each other.
Their parents had killed multiple people.
Shelly knew that Sami was her best target—Dave was also in jail, Tori was a minor, and after everything she’d done to her, Nikki was a lost cause.
Sami moved ton In
pleaser.
